Panamá’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC Panamá) was founded in 1962. Today, the institution is based in Ancón, Panamá City, and houses a collection of over 1,200 artworks by Panamanian and Latin American artists from the 20th and 21st centuries.
Palma and Taller TO, two Mexico City architecture offices, have won an international competition to design a new building for MAC Panamá in the Panamá City neighborhood of San Francisco.
Shortlisted firms included Consorcio UTM Ateliers, Lanza Atelier, PRODUCTORA, Yektajo Architects. (Lanza Atelier, another Mexico City studio, designed the 2026 Serpentine Pavilion.)
The consortium’s proposal was chosen out of 363 submissions, from architecture firms hailing from 56 countries.
Panamanian architect Ginnette Gotti coordinated the competition, juried by David Basulto, ArchDaily founder; Storefront for Art and Architecture’s executive director and chief curator José Esparza Chong Cuy; planner Martha Thorne; MAC’s Antonio Murzi and Graciela Quelquejeu de Chapman; and architects Ramón Zafrani and Annamaria Zampogna.
Jurors praised Palma and Taller TO for positing a “vision of the museum as an open, accessible cultural infrastructure.”
“Rooted in Panamanian identity, climate, and landscape, the project proposes a contemporary, democratic, and sustainable architecture—conceived through collaboration to envision new forms of gathering, culture, and urban life,” jurors said in a joint statement.
The building will support MAC Panamá’s conservation department, exhibitions, educational programs, research, and public activities, with an emphasis on community engagement.
The first floor is divided between public and private areas, for ease of circulation and staff privacy. Museum offices, a storage vault, a freight lift, and service areas are on one side; while the other is occupied by an archive, children’s room, print workshop, meeting areas, and balconies.
Renderings show the forthcoming building wrapped in ceramic lattice screens. The facade’s texture will be visible from areas inside the museum thanks to large spans of glazing that affords views of the landscaped grounds. Native plantings and trees will be speckled throughout the museum’s campus.
A courtyard will have palatial ceiling heights, designed for large gatherings, festivals and film screenings. Tall columns will delineate the space, almost like a hypostyle hall.
Per renderings, gallery spaces also boast generous floor-to-ceiling heights and will be painted a shade of off-white. Flexibility in mind, these will be ideal spaces for showing artworks of all sizes.
Skylights will illuminate the exhibition areas. Children’s areas will also have generous glazing, washing the spaces for play with natural light.
The architecture and design team will now work with the museum to refine its proposal and bring on local professionals and stakeholders to realize the project. A construction timeline hasn’t been announced.